Banal nationalism

BANAL NATIONALISM

Michael Billig

SAGE Publications London • Thousand Oaks • New Delhi

Acknowledgements I consider myself extremely fortunate, and privileged, to have as my academic home the Department of Social Sciences at Loughborough University. I have certainly benefited from working amongst such intellectually tolerant and diverse colleagues. I would especially like to thank the members of the Discourse and Rhetoric Group who have given friendly criticism on early drafts. In particular, thanks to: Malcolm Ashmore, Derek Edwards, Mike Gane, Celia Kitzinger, Dave Middleton, Mike Pickering and Jonathan Potter. Also, I would like to thank Peter Golding for all he has done to develop (and protect) the Department as an intellectual home. I am also grateful for the comments and friendly support of Susan Condor, Helen Haste, Greg McLennan, John Shotter and Herb Simons. Transatlantic conversations with the last two are always greatly appreciated. Parts of Chapter 7 were originally published in New Left Review, November/December, 1993, under the title of 'Nationalism and Richard Rorty: the text as a flag for the Pax Americana'. I am grateful to the publishers for permitting me to republish the article in the present form. Lastly, I want to thank my family. It is a pleasurable sign of passing years to be able to thank Becky Billig for reading parts of the manuscript and for correcting my grammatical mistakes. But, as always, the gratitude goes much deeper than grammar. So thanks and love to Sheila, Daniel, Becky, Rachel and Ben.

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Contents Acknowledgements

vii

Introduction

2 Nations and Languages

13

3 Remembering Banal Nationalism

37

4 National Identity in the World of Nations

60

5 Flagging the Homeland Daily

93

6 Postmodernity and Identity

128

7 Philosophy as a Flag for the Pax Americana

154

8 Concluding Remarks

174

References

178

Name Index

193

Subject Index

198

1 Introduction All societies that maintain armies maintain the belief that some things are more valuable than life itself. Just what is so valued varies. In previous times, wars were fought for causes which now seem incomprehensibly trivial. In Europe, for example, armies were mobilized in the name of defending religious ritual or chivalric honour. William of Normandy, speaking before the Battle of Hastings, exhorted his troops to avenge the spilling of "noble blood" (Anonymous, 1916). To fight for such matters appears 'barbaric', or, worse still, 'mediaeval' in today's balance of priorities. The great causes for which modern blood is to be spilled are different; and so is the scale of the bloodshed. As Isaiah Berlin has written, "it is by now a melancholy commonplace that no century has seen so much remorseless and continued slaughter of human beings by one another as our own" (1991, p. 175). Much of this slaughter has been performed in the' name of the nation, whether to achieve national independence, or to defend the national territory from encroachment, or to protect the very principle of nationhood. None of these matters was mentioned by Duke William on the south coast of England over nine hundred years ago. Eve of battle rhetoric is always revealing, for the leader will remind the followers why the most supreme of all sacrifices is being called upon. When President George Bush, speaking from the Oval Office in the White House, announced the start of the Gulf War, he expressed the contemporary common sense of sacrifice: "All reasonable efforts to reach a peaceful resolution" had been expended; acceptance of peace at this stage would be less reasonable than the pursuance of war. "While the world waited," claimed Bush, "Saddam Hussein systematically raped, pillaged and plundered a tiny nation no threat to his own." It was not individuals who had been raped or pillaged. It was something much more important: a nation. The President was not just speaking for his own nation, the United States, but the United States was speaking for the whole world: "We have before us the opportunity to forge for ourselves and for future generations a new world order, a world where the rule of law, not the law of the jungle, governs the conduct of nations." In this new order "no nation will be permitted to brutally assault its neighbour" (George Bush, 16 January 1991; reproduced in Sifry and Cerf, 1991, pp. 311-14). The moral order that Bush was evoking was an order of nations, In the new world order, nations would apparently be protected from thei r neighbours, who would also be nations. As always, what is left unspecified

2

Banal nationalism

is revealing. Bush did not justify why the notion of nationhood was so important, nor why its protection demanded the ultimate of sacrifices. He assumed his audience would realize that a war, waged by nations against the nation, which had sought to abolish a nation, was necessary to affirm the sacred principle of nationhood. At the end of his speech he quoted the words of 'ordinary' soldiers. A Marine Lieutenant-General had said "these things are worth fighting for" because a world "in which brutality and lawlessness go unchecked isn't the kind of world we're going to want to live in" . Bush had judged his audience well. As on previous occasions, bold military action against a foreign enemy brought popular support to a US president (Bowen, 1989; Brody, 1991; Sigelman and Conover, 1981). During the campaign, public opinion polls indicated that the President's 'approval rating' had soared from a mediocre 50 per cent to a record level of nearly 90 per cent (Krosnick and Brannon, 1993). Opposition to the war in the United States was minimal and was castigated as unpatriotic by a loyal press (Hackett and Zhao, 1994; Hallin, 1994). A recording of the national anthem went to the top of the popular music charts. T-shirts and hats, with patriotic insignia, were being sold on the streets. Elsewhere in the world, polls showed that Western public opinion could be relied on to support the coalition (Taylor, P.M., 1992). Britain's largest selling newspaper, the Sun, carried a full colour front page, depicting a Union Jack with a soldier's face at its heart; readers were invited to hang the display in their front windows. I'Within weeks, the enemy army had capitulated. On 27 February 1991, / ~ush, speaking again from his Oval Office, was able to announce victory. He spoke of flags: "Tonight the Kuwaiti flag once again flies above the / capital of a free and sovereign nation and the American flag flies above our embassy." Perhaps a quarter of a million Iraqis - civilian and military - lay dead. The exact figure will not be known, The West was not counting its victims; it was enjoying its victory. The American flag was flying proudly. The episode illustrated the speed with which Western publics can be mobilized for flag-waving warfare in the name of nationhood. Nine years earlier there had been a smaller scale rehearsal. In 1982 the Argentinian military junta had sent a military force to take over the South Atlantic islands which they called 'the Malvinas', but whose inhabitants and the administering British called 'the Falkland Islands'. As in the Gulf War, the very principle of nationhood was said to be at stake. Both sides claimed that the islands were rightfully theirs, and, in both cases, the claims were made with popular domestic support. On 3 May of that year, the British House of Commons, debating the crisis, was virtually unanimous in urging the Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, to take decisive action. Even Michael Foot, the leader of the Labour Party opposition and a life-long anti-militarist, caught the mood, More was at stake, he declared, than the wishes of the few thousand inhabitants of the islands: there was the wider

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Remembering banal nationalism

51

army bases; he has seen the flag in church; he had prayed for his country. He was the sort of young, white, middle-class child for whom the flag had great meaning. For the majority, and for most of the time, one suspects that the routine is enacted as a routine. Even the young boy, who patriotically told Coles of his uncles, may have fidgeted, whispered nudged his neighbour at times during the ceremony. Unfortunately, w~ only have the young boy's words, as he spoke on best behaviour to the visiting adult, and not his conduct day after day. Coles, however, has noticed what other social scientists overlook. The significance of the ceremony is not diminished if it is treated as routine rather than as an intense experience. If anything, the significance i~ enhanced: the sacral has become part of everyday life, instead of being confined to a special place of worship or particular day of celebration. Significantly, Coles does not see nationalism as a passing emotion or a surplus phenomenon: "Nationalism works its way into just about every corner of the mind's life" (1986, p. 60). Nor does he project nationalism on to others: "Nationality is a constant in the lives of most of us and must surely be worked into our thinking in various ways, with increasing diversity and complexity of expression as our lives unfold" (p. 59). Coles' position is unusual on two counts. First, he treats the saluting of the flag as being psychologically important in the development of young Americans' views on the world. Secondly, unusually for an American investigator, he sees nationalism as pervasive in his own country. An interesting possibility arises: perhaps the two stances are related. Or, rather, perhaps the absence of both in much social science is connected. Maybe, embedded in conventional social scientific thinking is a habit of thinking, which produces an intellectual amnesia. This habit leads analysts, especially in the United States, to forget those flags, which are daily saluted and those which remain unsaluted. Also, it leads analysts to forget 'our' nationalism.

Nationalism and Sociological Common Sense If there is such a habit of thought, which produces a theoretical amnesia, then it is not the personal mark of a particular academic. It will reflect something much more widespread and deep-seated: a social scientific, ~r more particularly a sociological, common sense. Such a common sense will be ingrained into the intellectual habits of those who practise soc!olog~ professionally. It will mark out certain topics as interesting and socIOlogI.' cally relevant, while others will be peripheral. An academic discipline's habits of thinking will be contalOed In core . . . (B 1977 1994; assumptions and in routlOe rhetOrical practices .rown,. ' widel McCloskey, 1985; Nelson et aI., 1987). These are hahblts whICthhea::ry basi~ . . t hem mIg . ht appear to t reaten be fOllnd in unquestioned for to questIon , d' . I'· of the discipline itself. The ISCIP lOary common sense c... n

52

Banal nationalism

major, intellectual works, as well as in the glossy textbooks, which are designed for a mass student readership. In fact, textbooks are often good sources for discovering a social science's common sense (Billig, 1990b; Stringer, 1990). Textbooks, in seeking to transmit the disciplinary vision to a new generation of disciples, tend to package the approved view in handy form. A quick glance at the subject indexes of standard textbooks in sociology would reveal that nationalism is not a major, disciplinary preoccupation. It certainly is not in two textbooks, written during nationalism's so-called quiescent period: Sociology in a Changing World by Kornblum (1988) and Sociology by Macionis (1989). Both these texts are aimed at the large US undergraduate market. Their subject indexes accord 'nationalism' no more than a couple of pages each. Britain's most widely read textbook, Haralambos and Holborn's Sociology (1991), has no index entry for nationalism. Similar absences can also be found in important academic texts. Social Theory Today, edited by Turner and Giddens (1987), is an influential compendium, presenting an overview of major trends in contemporary sociological theorizing. The subject index has large entries for class, social structure and so on, but there are only two pages which are indexed for nationalism. These two pages deal with movements of "racial or ethnic minorities" within nations, rather than nationalism qua nationalism (Miliband, 1987, p. 342). To cite a further example: Ulrich Beck's important and well-received analysis of the new conditions of modernity, The Risk Society, has no entry for nationalism. It does mention briefly the undermining of national borders as part of a condition which "makes the utopia of a world society a little more real or at least more urgent" (1992, p. 47). Nationalism, here, far from returning is not even depicted as repressed. But, if it is to return, the way is opened for it to return as a special subject, rather than as the endemic condition of the times. Sociology, from the classic works of Durkheim and Weber onwards, has been presented by sociologists as the study of 'society'. Sociologists routinely define their discipline in these terms. Edward Shils, writing on 'Sociology' in The Social Science Encyclopedia, describes sociology as "at present an unsystematic body of knowledge gained through the study of the whole and parts of society" (1985, p. 799). According to Kornblum, "Sociology is the scientific study of human societies and human behaviour in the many groups that make up a society" (1988, p. 4). Macionis begins his textbook by defining sociology as "the scientific study of society and the social activity of human beings" (1989, p. 2). Haralambos and Holborn define a sociological theory as "a set of ideas which claim to explain how society or aspects of society work" (1991, p. 8). All these definitions assume that there is such a thing as 'a society' which exists in an unproblematic way. A number of critics of orthodox sociology have drawn attention to the way that sociologists take the existence of 'society' for granted. According to Giddens, it is a term which is "largely unexamined" in sociological

Remembering banal nationalism

53

discourse (1987, p. 25). Immanuel Wallerstein claims that "no concept is more pervasive in modern social science than society, and no concept is used more automatically and unreftectively than society" (1987, p. 315). Mann (1986), in making a similar point, announces that, if he were able, he "would abolish the concept of 'society' altogether" (p. 2; see also Bauman, 1992a, 1992b; Mann, 1992; McCrone, 1992; Turner, 1990). The problem is not that sociologists, whether in textbooks or works of theory, leave 'society' undefined. It lies in the assumption that 'we' readers will know more or less what a 'society' is: 'we' have common-sense ways of understanding 'society' (Bowers and Iwi, 1993). It often turns out that the 'society' which lies at the heart of sociology's own self-definition is created in the image of the nation-state. Indeed, in the case of Max Weber there is evidence that his support for German political nationalism directly influenced his conception of 'society' (Anderson, 1992). The connection is continued in today's textbooks. Macionis (1989), having defined sociology as the scientific study of 'society', unusually goes on to give a definition of 'society': it is "a people who interact with one another within a limited territory and who share a culture" (p. 9). This is, of course, precisely how 'nations' are typically viewed both by themselves and by theorists: as peoples with a culture, a limited territory and distinguished by bonds of interaction. For sociologists it is a banal cliche to define their discipline as the 'science of society'; and it just as banal a habit of thought to imagine 'society' as a bounded, independent entity. A number of years ago Norbert Elias put the issue well: "Many twentieth century sociologists, when speaking of 'society', no longer have in mind (as did their predecessors) a 'bourgeois society' or a 'human society' beyond the state, but increasingly the somewhat diluted ideal image of a nation-state" (1978, p. 241). There is a further point. The phrase 'science of society' implies that societies can be treated as self-contained units, with 'society' as something to be studied in isolation. The discipline has historically concentrated upon social relations within the 'society', or the groups, to use Kornblum's phrase, that make up a society. In so doing, it neglects the relations between 'societies', even failing to ask why there is a world of 'societies', let alone a world of nations (Wallerstein, 1987). Bauman (1992a) claims that the boundaries of 'society' (as conceived in terms of the nation-state) limit sociologists' conception of the social world. What is outside the 'society' is treated as an unanalysed 'environment'. However, nations (or 'societies') exist in a world of other nations (or 'societies'). Nationalism as an ideology, which spread throughout the world, was always an international ideology. Nations have never been hermetically sealed, but, as Bauman suggests, "nation states, those prototypes of theoretical societies, were porous" (p. 57). If the interrelation between the nation and the world of nations has been largely ignored by orthodox sociology, then sociology has been even less cquipped to study cultures and epochs, such as

54

Banal nationalism

Mediaeval Europe, where forms of community are not apparently organized into neatly separated entities. Far from leading to nationhood's being in the forefront of sociological inquiry, the emphasis on 'society' and the implicit modelling of 'society' on nation, has both reified and concealed nationhood. 'Society' is conceived as a universal entity. All human social life is presumed to take place within the orbit of 'society'; 'societies' are to be found wherever humans live socially. The problematic for orthodox sociology, particularly Parsonian sociology, has been to study how members of a 'society' become socialized into adopting the 'values', 'norms' and 'culture' of their 'society'. Haralambos and Holborn (1991), in the opening chapter of their textbook, specifically introduce readers to these concepts. These are all universal terms: it is presumed that all 'societies' have 'norms' and 'values'. Thus, 'our' society is not unique, but is an instance of something which is universal. The image of 'our' society, however, is a nation-state. Kornblum (1988), in his textbook, asserts that the nation-state is "the social entity that, for most people in the world today, represents 'society' itself" (p. 72). If the nation is merely a variant of something universal (a 'society'), then the processes by which it is reproduced need not be identified by special words. Its particularities can be subsumed under general terms such as 'norm', 'value', 'socialization' etc. 'Nationalism' in this context need not make an appearance. Yet, it can return as a special subject to demarcate those who are striving to have their own 'bociety' , or those who might be threatening the integrity of 'ours', or those who are proposing an extreme, fascistic politics of nationality. If the repressed continues its dramatic return in Eastern Europe and elsewhere, then the textbooks of sociology, in their future editions, are likely to add sub-sections or even whole chapters on nationalism. If they do, nationalism will still be seen as something surplus, even contingent. It will be a special subject. 'Society', modelled on the image of 'our' nation, will continue to be treated as necessarily universal. In this way, 'our' nationalism need not return textually. This sort of sociological common sense can leave its mark on investigations of individual nations. For example, American sociologists, examining the state of American 'society', often overlook the national dimension of their topic, as they transform the particular into universal categories (Woodiwiss, 1993). For example, Bellah et al.'s Habits of the Heart is a superbly executed study, investigating the effects of individualism in contemporary American culture. It is based upon wide-ranging interviews with large numbers of American citizens. The book attracted a wide readership, becoming a non-fiction best-seller in the United States. The authors utter a message of warning, as they argue that individualism is undermining a sense of community. According to Bellah et aI., "we live in a society that encourages us to cut free from the past ... no tradition and no community in the United States is above criticism" (1986, p. 154).

Remembering banal nationalism

55

The phrasing of the argumen.t is significant. The sense of community, which is being lost, refers to feelIngs of township or locality. There is still a presumed locus in which the sense of community and tradition is evaporating. As the authors state, "we live in a society": the 'society', of course, is the United States. And the 'we', whom the authors are invoking, are Americans. Whatever the decline of 'community', the national society continues to exist. The authors' analysis seems to overlook their respondents' sense of being American; this sense is shared by the authors, as their text flags its own national identity. In this way, the authors take the framework of their own nation ('our society') for granted. Despite their other warnings of collapse, they do not suggest that the United States will fail to continue as the United States. Indeed, their text, by treating 'our society' as an assumed context, does its bit to enhabit the nation. And for all the authors' detailed accounts of community, tradition and its absence, they do not specifically point out the tradition in the schools, where the young routinely proclaim the unity of their nation under God.

Our Patriotism - Their Nationalism

The repressed is not totally forgotten in orthodox social scientific writings, for it can return in a textually changed form. 'Our' loyalties to 'our' nationstate can be defended, even praised. A rhetorical distinction is necessary for accomplishing this defence. 'Our' nationalism is not presented as nationalism, which is dangerously irrational, surplus and alien. A new identity, a different label, is found for it. 'Our' nationalism appears as 'patriotism' - a beneficial, necessary and, often, American force. In consequence, some social scientists insist that patriotism and nationalism represent two very different states of mind. The distinction would be convincing if there were clear, unambiguous criteria, beyond an ideological requirement to distinguish 'us' from 'them'. Walker Connor, one of today's leading specialists on nationalism, claims that nationalism and patriotism "should not be confused through the careless use of language" (1993, p. 376; see also Connor, 1978). According to Connor, nationalism is an irrational, primordial force, "an emotional attachment to one's people" (1993, p. 374). Nationalists often appeal to 'blood ties', in order to tap into these irrational forces. Nationalism, argues Connor, arises in ethnic groups, which claim common origins of blood. Connor cites the rhetoric of Hitler, Bismark and Mao to illustrate the dangerously irrational force of such appeals. Because nationalism is based upon a sense of the nation's ethnic unity, the national loyalties of 'immigrant' nations should not be described as 'nationalist': "I wish to make it clear that my comments do not refer ... to immigrant societies such as those within Australia, the United States and non-Quebec Canada" (1993, p. 374). If the loyalties, engendered in the United States, are not properly called nationalist, then they should be called 'patriotic'. Connor writes of his

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Banal nationalism

school days in the United States, when he and fellow pupils were taught to sing' America' and to think of Washington and Jefferson as the founders of the nation. The United States might have adopted some of the ideas of 'nationalism', but still this was not nationalism proper. It did not possess the emotional depth and irrational force of nationalism. Politically, this puts patriotism at a disadvantage, when competing with the (alien) forces of nationalism: Despite the many advantages that the state has for politically socializing its citizens in patriotic values, patriotism - as evident from the multitude of separatist movements pockmarking the globe - cannot muster the level of emotional commitment that nationalism can. (Connor, 1993, p. 387) The rhetoric tells its story. American loyalties, inculcated in school, are constructed as being 'patriotic'; they do not constitute a problematic irruption of the irrational psyche, unlike nationalism, which provokes "countless fanatical sacrifices" (1993, p. 385). The words 'fanatical', 'irrational', 'instinct' attach themselves to 'nationalism' in Connor's text. 'Patriotic values' (the term has a comforting rhetoric) are threatened by the nationalist movements, which 'pockmark the globe' (and, here, the rhetoric of disfigurement is used). 'Their' emotional bonds, so different from 'ours', are the problem and the threat. The language is psychological, yet there is no direct psychological evidence to distinguish the rational state of patriotism from the irrational force of nationalism (see also the arguments of Eller and Coughlan, 1993). The evidence lies in the social events themselves: mass movements of nationalism are deemed irrational. The analysis, with its dire warnings, soothingly reassures. So much can be forgotten, as 'we' recall 'their' nationalism with horror. The wars waged by US troops; the bombings in Vietnam and Iraq; the bombast of successive US presidents; and the endless display of the revered flag: all these are removed from the problems of over-heated nationalism. If required, they can be transmuted into the warm glow of patriotism, the healthy necessity rather than the dangerous surplus. A number of social scientists have attempted to draw a psychological distinction between nationalism and patriotism, in terms of the direction, rather than intensity, of the attitudes. Morris Janowitz (1983), advocating that American schools should instil a patriotic civic consciousness, defined patriotism as "the persistence of love or attachment to a country". He distinguished this love from xenophobia, or hatred of others (p. 194). A similar distinction can be found in Snyder'S (1976) Varieties of Nationalism. Patriotism is "defensive", being based upon a love of one's country, whereas nationalism "takes on a quality of aggression that makes it one of the prime causes for wars" (p. 43, see also Doob, 1964). The social psychologist Daniel Bar-Tal (1993) has argued that patriotism is a functionally positive force, providing stability for the 'ingroup' and a sense of identity to its members. He defines patriotism as the "attachment of group

Remembering banal nationalism

57

members towards their group and the country in which they reside" (p. 48). He distinguishes this positive attachment from chauvinism and nationalism, both of which include negative feelings against outgroups

(p.51). The problem is how to distinguish in practice these two allegedly very different states of mind. One cannot merely ask potential patriots whether they either love their country or hate foreigners. Even the most extreme of nationalists will claim the patriotic motivation for themselves. Frederick Hertz, writing on nationalism when Hitler was still Chancellor of Germany, put the matter well. If one asked fascists what their creed was, they will invariably say that "it consists in passionate devotion to the nation and in putting its interests higher than anything else" (1944, p. 35). Fascists will protest that they are defenders, not attackers, only taking against foreigners when the latter are a danger to the beloved homeland. Hitler, for example, imagined that he was defending Germany against the Jews, asserting in Mein Kampf that "the Jew is not the attacked but the attacker" (1972, p. 293). Today's fascists, likewise, claim that they only desire to protect the homeland from invasion, conspiracy and racial pollution (Billig, 1978, pp. 224f.; Billig, 1991). The hatreds will be justified in the name of love. In the world of nation-states, everyone claims to be acting in defence, going to war through necessity, rather than choice. 'We don't want war, but .. .' is the common phrase of politicians leading their countries to battle (Lauerbach, 1989). Semantically, even the notion of 'jingoism' owes its origin to this stance. "We don't want to fight", went the music hall song of 1878. "but, by Jingo, ... " (Reader, 1988, p. 46). The claim that nationalism and patriotism are psychologically distinct needs to be backed by evidence about different states of mind or underlying motivations. Often the force of the claim is stronger than the empirical data cited in support. Kosterman and Feshbach (1989) claim to have found empirical evidence that patriotic attitudes about one's own country are unrelated to negative attitudes about foreign nations. Their claims and their evidence are worth examining: they reveal, not so much an objective difference between nationalism and patriotism, but the readiness to claim such a difference. Kosterman and Feshbach gave samples of US residents questionnaires, asking them about their views of America. Having factor-analysed the replies, Kosterman and Feshbach argued that patriotism and nationalism formed separate dimensions. which can be assessed by independent scales. The patriotic scale included items such as 'I love my country' or 'When I see the American flag flying, I feel great.' The nationalist items compared America with other countries (i.e. 'generally, the more influence America has on other nations, the better off they are'). The mean scores of the patriotism scale were generally high (significantly higher than the nationalist scale), indicating that the patriotic statements about being emotionally committed to America attracted general assent. Despite Kosterman and

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Banal nationalism

Feshbach's claims about the independence of the patriotism and nationalism scales, the data, in fact, showed the two scales to be significantly correlated (1989, Table VII, p. 268). Also both scales correlated with other variables in similar ways: for example, on both scales Republican supporters scored more highly than Democratic supporters (Table X, p. 270). Kosterman and Feshbach draw wide-ranging conclusions from their data. They claim that their results supported "a sharp discrimination between nationalism and patriotism" (p. 273). They warn against nationalism: "one cannot help but be concerned" by nationalism, which encourages "belligerent acti<Jns". By contrast, patriotism is valuable because it is as "important to the well-being of a nation as high self-esteem is to the well-being of an individual"; patriotism, far from causing wars, may actually be a means "of reducing international belligerence" (p. 273, emphasis in original). This conclusion comes after evidence that those with higher nationalist scores tend to have higher patriotic scores. Thus, the sentiments, which supposedly reduce international belligerence, tend to accompany those which promote it, despite the protestation that the two should be sharply distinguished. It would seem that something other than the empirical results was pushing the authors to their praise of patriotism and their criticism of nationalism. Underlying such arguments is the assumption that hatred of the outgroup (rather than love of the in group) provides the motivation for nationalist warfare. This is almost certainly an oversimplification. In an important analysis, Jean Bethke Elshtain (1993) argues that, in the past century, young men have gone to war in their millions motivated not primarily by hatred of the enemy, but by a 'will-to-sacrifice'. The willingness to die in the cause of the homeland precedes a motive to kill. The elements of this will-to-sacrifice in the cause of the nation are uppermost in the items on the 'patriotism scale': the love of the flag, the 'great pride in that land that is our America', the importance 'for me to serve my country' and so on. As Kosterman and Feshbach's study shows, such sentiments are widely held in the United States by men and women. Arguably, these shared sentiments provide the background for nationally united responses, should some other nation appear to threaten the pride, politics or economics of 'our' great America. This is the context for those doubly forgotten flags. Contrary to what respondents claimed in response to the questionnaire item, they do not feel great whenever they see the American flag flying. They see it far too often to feel that way each time. They see it too frequently even to notice that they are seeing it. Those flags, together with other routine signs of nationhood, act as unmindful reminders, preventing the danger of collective amnesia. The citizens, however, do not forget their appropriate responses, when the social occasions demand: they know to declare that the flag gives them a great feeling. All the while, the forgetting is doubled. Social scientists have probed the most intimate parts of modern life. They

Remembering banal nationalism

59

have calculated the number of sexual fantasies the average adult American is likely to have per day. But a census of flags has not been undertaken. No one asks how many stars and stripes the average American is likely to encounter in the course of the day. Nor what is the effect of all this flagging.

4

National Identity in the World of Nations It is easy to think that the problems of nationalism come down to issues of 'identity'. So much about nationalism seems, at first sight, to be explained by 'identity'. To be German or French is, psychologically, to have a German or French 'identity'; nation-states are being threatened by the search for 'identities'; patriotic ceremonies strengthen the sense of national 'identity'; 'identity politics' is a reaction to a crisis of modern 'identity'; and so on. 'Identity' seems to provide familiar diagnoses and explanations. As John Shotter has written, " 'identity' has become the watchword of the times" (1993a, p. ]88). The watchword, however, should be watched, for frequently it explains less than it appears to. The routine f1aggings, discussed in the previous chapter, might be said to strengthen 'national identity' in the contemporary, established nation-state. But what does 'national identity' mean in this context? It certainly does not refer to an inward emotion - a glow of pairToi(c awareness - experienced by all who pass by the unsaluted flag. Nor does it mean that everyone within the nation-state becomes identical. As Stuart Hall affirms, "the notion that identity has to do with people that look the same, feel the same, call themselves the same, is nonsense" (1991a, p. 49). There seems to be something psychological about an 'identity', but theories of psychology are often unable to explain what this psychological element is. There does not seem to be a particular psychological state, which can be identified as an 'identity'. Tha.tbe.ing so, an investigation of national identity should aim to disperse the concept of 'identity' into different elements. An 'identity' is not a thing; it is a short-hand description for ways 6f talking about the self and community (Bhavnani and "Phoenix, 1994; Shatter and Gergen, 1989). Ways of talking, or ideological discourses, do not develop in social vacuums, but they are related to forms of life. In this respect, 'identity', if it is to be understood as a form of talking, is also to be understood as a form of life. The saluted and unsaluted flags are not stimuli that evoke 'identity-reactions'; they belong to the forms of life which constitute what could be called national identities. Serge Moscovici (1983) has argued that the so-called inner psychological ; states of individuals depend upon culturally shared depictions, or represen; tat ions of the social world. A person cannot claim to have patriotic feeling~

National identity

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for their nation, unless they have assumptions about what a nation is and, indeed, what patriotism is: unless, to use Moscovici's terminology, they have social representations of 'nation', 'patriotism' and much else beside (see also Farr, L993; McKinlay et aI., 1993; Moscovici, 1987). In consequence, the psychological study of national identity should search for the c0l1'll11on-sense assumptions and ways of talking about nationhood. The present chapter, therefore, investigates the general themes of nationalist consciousness and its habits of thinking. It involves examining what Roland Barthes (1977) called "banal opinion", or 'the doxa' of common sense

(p. 162). With regard to nationalist thinking, one need not ask 'What is a national identity?' but 'What does it me~~_l~s:I"aillltQ""h~y_e anallQna[j:a:eniity?'The general forms ofnaIToniilistthinking then need to be outlined. As will be argued, these include ways of conceiving of 'us, the nation', which is said to have its unique destiny (OfIdentity); it also involves conceiving of 'them, the--fiYreigriers', from whOm 'we' identify 'ourselves' as different. Nationalist tninling- involves more than commitment to a group and a sense of difference from other groups. It conceives 'our' group in a particular way. In doing so, it takes for granted ideas about nationhood and the link between peoples and homelands; and about the naturalness of the world of nations, divided into separate homelands. A whole way of thinking about the world is implicated. If this way of thinking seems to be commonplace and familiar, then it, nevertheless, includes mystic assumptions which have become habits of thought. This nationalist way of thinking, even when it is ingrained as habitual, is not straightforward. Just as a dialectic of remembering and forgetting might be said to sustain 'national identity', so this 'identity' involves a dialectic of inwardness and outwardness. The nation is always a nation in a world of nations. 'Internationalism' is not the polar opposite of 'nationalism', as if it constitutes a rival ideological consciousness. Nationalism, like other ideologies, contains its contrary themes, or dilemmatic aspects (Billig et at., 1988). An outward-looking element of internationalism is part of nationalism and has accompanied the rise of nationalism historically. When US presidents, today, claim to speak simultaneously on behalf of their nation and a new world order, they are not placing, side by side in the same utterance, elements from two, clearly separate ideologies; nor are they creating a novel synthesis from the thesis of nationalism and the antithesis of internationalism. They are using the hegemonic possibilities of nationalism. As will be suggested, these possibilities are endemic in nationalist habits of thinking.

Theory and Nation The rise of the nation-state brought about a transformation in the ways that people thought about themselves and about community. It could be said to

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have brought about a transformation of identity, even bringing into the popular vocabulary the notion of 'identity' itself (Giddens, 1990). Nevertheless, before the vocabulary of identity was set in place - befor~~~le could clainithat they 'were searching tOLtheir identity' ...:-Tt- was still possihle to falk of the self and of loyalties to thecommunity. People were able to label themselves, whether in terms of place, religion, tribe' or vassalage. But these labels, as it were,bore different packets of meaning than the labels of nationhood. In Language and Nationalism, Joshua Fishman recounts a story of peasants in Western Galicia at the turn of the century. They were asked whether they were Poles. "We are quiet folk", they replied. So, are you Germans? "We are decent folk" (Fishman, 1972, p. 6). The story appears to be about the clash of identities. According to Fishman, the peasants had a concrete consciousness: their identity was with this village, or this valley, rather than with the more abstract idea of the nation. It is said that rural Slovaks, emigrating to the United States at about the same time, were often unaware of their national identity, only knowing from which specific village they had come (Brass, 1991, p. 39). These are not stories of ignorance: the peasants in the Fishman story seem to know more than they admit. Nor do the stories merely tell of a clash of personal identities, as if the only difference were that the peasants identified themselves with the village, while the officials had a national identity. More was at stake than the way of defining the self. Fishman's story tells of a conflict between two outlooks, or forms of ideological consciousness. Calling it a clash of 'identities' lessens the full force of what was occurring. Like was not confronting like, as if two 'identities' - two variants of the same genus - were in competition. This was not a conflict between Poles and Germans. The peasants were standing against the very assumptions and forms of life which led to the identities of Pole and German. They were resisting the notion of nationhood, reacting against its theories as well as labels. A world, in which it is natural to have a national identity, was meeting, and overrunning, an older world. And now it appears strange - well worth telling as a good story - that four generations ago there were people who neither knew, nor wished to know, their nationality. The sort of confrontation described by Fishman has been enacted countless times, in one form or another, throughout nationalism's triumphant march across the globe. In Central Arabia, writes Helms (1981), nationalism was unknown until the twentieth century. Previously, identities had been based on the tribe or on the 'sphere of trade'. The tribal and trading boundaries were constantly changing. A world of fixed boundaries, and clearly delineated identities, was to replace this older world. Sometimes, colonial powers imposed the assumptions of nationalism by means of force. The British often insisted upon treating indigenous leaders as if they headed sovereign states (Hinsley, 1986). I n the 1830s the British Resident in New Zealand advised Maori chiefs to form themselves into a

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'United Tribes of New Zealand'. Not only would such an arrangement be administratively simpler; also, if sovereign state were appearing to negotiate with sovereign state, then highly unequal treaties could be presented with an outward display of legality and morality. In this, of course, a particular ideological vision of morality was being victoriously imposed. The new imposed identities (such as belonging to the United Tribes of New Zealand) were part of a more general outlook on the world. In this sense, nationalism involves a theoretical consciousn~s~. Etienne Balibar has written that-ilierels"no- raCism without theory (or theories)" (1991, p. 18). The racist may hate unthinkingly, yet, as Balibar implies, racism distinguishes between 'our race' and 'other races', 'our racial community' and 'theirs'. At the very minimum, the racist shares some common-sense theory of what a 'race' is; why it appears important; how 'races' differ; and why 'ours' should remain unmixed. By the same token, there is no nation~Ji\>m without theory. Nationalism involves assumptions about'~hat a naii-on i~: as Stl_~I:t, it is a theory of community, aswel1 as a theory about the-wo~ld being 'natural1y' divjdeclil1to such coriui1Unities. The theory does noTT\"eed-tQ- be experienced theoretical1y. Intellectuals have written theoretical tomes about 'nation'. With the triumph of nationalism, and the establishment of nations across the globe, the theories of nationalism have been transformed into familiar common sense. ,------ " The-assertion of belonging to a 'people' ;'-if made in a political context in which 'peoples' are assumed to deserve nation-states, is not an assertion of an inner psychological identity. A movement of national independence will nol only claim that 'we are a nation', but, in so doing, it wil1 be demanding the political entitlements which are presumed to follow from being a nation. Demanding such entitlements is not possible without assumptions about the nature of nations (any nation, not just 'ours'). The theory can be expressed theoretically, in terms of abstract principles about what a nation is and should be. However, as the world of nations is set in place as the world, so the theory also becomes(;nh;bitecl'inc:ommon sense. It ceases to seemtheoreilcal, but is embedded in habits of thought and life. In the Fishman example, the peasants were concretely resisting nationalism's habits of thought, asserting their own practical consciousness. There is a case for saying that the categories of nationalism come with particular theoretical discoun;es, which do not accompany other categor~~anfori s'l.lggests that in the polyethnic society of Malaya, people use ethnic terms concretely. He claims that the residents of Petalingjaya rarely use any general notion of 'ethnicity'. Instead, they use "a practical language embodying proper names such as Malay, Chinese and Indian" (1994, p. 6). In day-to-day life, while shopping at Indian or Malay stores, residents do not theorize about the various groups in Malaya. It is possible that Banton may be exaggerating the lack of theoretical consciousness on the part of the residents of Petalingjaya. Other things may be said on other occasions, especially in the context of political disputes for resources. Banton is, nevertheless, suggesting something important: tl,e residents do

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not have an overall 'theoretical' category under which to group the categories 'Malays', 'Chinese' and 'Indians', and to stipulate, in theory, what these groups are. They do have a further category, which sometimes subsumes the ethnic categories: this is the national category of being 'Malaysian'. According to Banton, this category comes to the fore at international sporting occasions. The national category is both concrete and theoretical. It is concrete in the sense that nations confront the inhabitants of today's world as concrete entities: Malaysia concretely exists for its citizenry, just as the United States of America, France and Brazil also concretely exist. Similarly, the Malaysian basketball team concretely exists when it plays the Indonesian team and when all its members, whether Malays or Chinese, are cheered by the partisan crowd as 'Malaysians'. In addition, Malaysia, and other nations, exist theoretically. They can be spoken about as 'nations'; there are general ways of talking about these concrete entities. In the world of nations, nationhood is both unthinkingly enhabited and is a matter of political controversy. 'Nation' can be an essentially contested concept, to use Gallie's phrase (1962). On occasion, definitions will be produced, to prove what a nation really is. As Seton-Watson (1977) suggested, definitions of nationhood generally aim "to prove that, in contrast to the community to which the definer belonged, some other group was not entitled to be called a nation" (p. 4). In this respect, the debates about what a nation is parallel, and sometimes are combined with, those debates, discussed in Chapter 2, about what a language is. Disputants, in arguing their political cases, might disagree about what should count as a real nation and or a real language, but they will take for granted that nations and languages really exist; and that they should exist. . For example, the charter of the Palestine Liberation Organization (pointedly called the Palestinian National Charter) declares the Palestinians to be a people and a nation. More than this, it has a rhetorical stake in distinguishing between 'genuine' nations and groups which are not nations. According to the Charter, Jews, whatever status they might claim for themselves, are a religious group, and, unlike the Palestinians, they do not "constitute a single nation with an identity of its own" (Article 20; see Billig, 1987b; Harkabi, 1980). In this, there is a theorizing about what constitutes a nation, a people and areligion: the nation is said to have a distinctive identity of its own. This theorizing,or common~sense sociologizing, is not abstract, but is rhetorically and politically directed. This type of thinking is not, of course, confined to aspiring nations. Established nations can respond in theoretical kind. For years, leading Israeli politicians denied that the Palestinians were a people: the "so-called Palestinian people" was a phrase used by prime ministers, to be contrasted rhetorically with the so-called genuineness of Jewish peoplchood. Yitzhak Rabin's letter to Vassar Arafat in September 1993, accepting mutual recognition, was discursively hIstoric: "The government of Israel has decided to recognize the PLO as the representative of the Palestinian

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people" (Guardian, 10 September 1993). Not only was the PLO recognized, but so were the Palestinians as a 'people', who were entitled to such a representation. Opponents of the agreement used different terminology. Tehran denounced the agreement as not being "commensurate with ideals for which the Muslim Palestinian nation has fought for decades" (Guardian, 1 September 1993). A differently characterized people - the 'Muslim Palestinian nation' - is indicated. These are not haphazard labels. Not only do they reflect political stances, but these stances are articulated by means of common-sense sociological ideas about 'peoples', 'nations' and 'identity'. Wallerstein (1991) recounts the intense debates in South Africa among those classified by the apartheid regime as being 'coloureds': should they call themselves 'coloureds' or were 'coloureds' merely a 'so-called people', an illegitimately imposed category? The debate was one of identity and self-definition, for the protagonists were speaking deeply of themselves. But it was more than that. The nature of the categories - the meaning of people hood - was at issue. In the contemporary world, the issue 'what is a nation?' is not merely an interesting topic for academic seminars. It touches upon issues which contemporary people think worth the sacrifice of life - issues which the Galician peasants in the story could recognize as dangerous missiles, from which evasive cover should be taken.

Identity and Categories All this is said as a war!1jllg against the temptation to explain nationalist consciousness in terms of 'identity', as if 'identity' were a psychological state:'which exists apart from forms of life. Nationalism is more than a fee!~ng-(ifidentity; it is more "h~n ~n interpretation, or theory, of the world; )ti~ also a way of being within the ,worlci.9J[lations;.:rhe problem is that toe historldHparficularitiesof n'ationalism, and its links with the world of nation-states, tend to be overlooked, if national 'identity' is considered as functionally equivalent with any other type of 'identity'. A complex topography of heights and depths then becomes flattened into a single plain. Unfortunately, this flattening characterizes many social psychological theories of identity. It even characterizes the most creative and important theory of social identity to be produced in recent years. The Social Identity Theory has justly been described as ."one of the most ambitious undertakings in research on group processes" (Eiser, 1986, p. 316). The theory was originally formulated by Henri Tajfel (1974, 1981, 1982; see also Brewer, 1979; Brown, 1988), and has been developed, more recently, under the heading of 'self-categorization theory' (e.g., Abrams and Hogg, 1991; Hogg and Abrams, 1988; Taylor and Moghaddam, 1994; Turner, 1984; Turner et aI., 1987). Although Tajfel (J2.69, 1970) was concerned to study national identity, Social Identity Theory is not primarily a theory of

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nationalism. It is a general theory of group identity, exploring universal psycfiological principles, which are presumed to ·lie behind all forms of group identity. Social Identity Theory assumes that psychological elements are crucia.\.il:' group behaviour. Tajfel gave the example of nations: a nation will only eXlstir body of people feel themselves to be a nation (1981, p. 229). This illustrated, he suggested, a more general point: groups only exist if members identify themselves with the group. Identification, according to Social Identity Theory, is, at root, a form of categorization. For groups to exist, individuals must categorize themselves in group terms. The theory stresses that categorization is divisive, because categories segment the world. The meaning of the category 'table' is derived from the fact that a 'table' is to be distinguished from a 'chair' (Rosch, 1978). Similarly, to be a member of an 'ingroup' entails a categorical distinction from an 'outgroup'. The imagining of 'our' community involves imagining, either implicitly or explicitly, 'them', from whom 'we' are distinct. One of the major strengths of the Social Identity Theory is to emphasize thisserise of social divisiol'l' which group identification and categorization entails. Tajfel's theory contained a strong motivational theme. Individuals, he claimed, have a need for a positive social identity, or self-conception: "It can be assumed that an individual will tend to remain a member of a group and seek membership of new groups if these groups have some contribution to make to the positive aspects of his (sic) social identity" (Tajfel, 1981, p. 256). To achieve this positive identity, groups will tend to compare themselves positively with contrasting outgroups, and they will seek J,: dimensions of comparison on which they will fare well. For instanc~, I ... ... .. . . nations will produce flattering stereotypes of themselves, a.n. d demeaning I stereotypes of those other nations, with which they compare themselves. T.fte-dimensions, ·01'1 which they pride their own qualities, will be accorded extra importance. The flattering stereotypes, held by the in group about itself, and the unflattering ones about outgroups, will maintain the positive self-identity, which is necessary for the group's continuing existence. There are, according to Hogg and Abrams (1988), three stages in the process of group identification. First, individuals categorize themselves as part of an ingroup, assigning themselves a social identity and distinguishing themselves from the relevant outgroup. Then, they learn the stereotypic norms associated with such an identity. Third, they assign these norms to themselves, and "thus their behaviour becomes more normative as their category membership becomes salient" (Hogg and Abrams, 1988, p. 172). In this way, the self-categorization version of the theory links selfidentification to stereotyping. Two critical pOin.ts. can be noted about this important body of social theoTlzmg. The first relates to the universalism of Social Theory and its neglect of the specific meaning of social categories. critical. point concerns the theory's focus upon individua: n and Its neglect of the ways in which national identit)

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becomes enhabited. This, in turn, leads to a neglect of the central, distinguishing features of banal nationalism. ("'J/ (

Categorizing the Categories

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Soci~l. I~entity Theory describesp1iychological features which are pre-

sumed to be universal and not linked to particular socia-historic contexts. Just as classical sociology assumed the univers;liity of -'so~i~ties', in which all humans are presumed to live, so Social Identity Theory, and most other psychological theories of 'group identity' :assume 'groups' to be universal. Nations, properly speaking, might belong TO- the modern period, but 'ingroups' and 'outgroups', 'groups' and 'group identities', are to be found in all eras (Bar-Tal, 1993). Of course, Social Identity Theory recognizes that there are different forms of group, such as caste, nation, religion, tribe and so on; feminist critics, however, have maintained that Social Identity.) .... .. .... '.''"_ .. . . . . """. theorists have consistently oy~~I